Performance and Text in the Italian Carolingian Tradition

The Italian chivalric-epic tradition is based primarily on medieval Carolingian lore from France. Oral and written manifestations of this tradition influenced and enriched each other across the centuries. This essay explores the dialectic between oral and written Carolingian epic in Italy. It focuses on the medieval cantari poems and on the Sicilian cunto, which was a type of oral performance that survived into the twentieth century